Snow Day; Getting to Know the Neighbors

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I absolutely love the snow.  It makes you slow down.  It forces you to look around and appreciate beauty; everything gets quiet, you unplug.  You have an enlightened, Zen-like beautiful nature moment, no hiking, tent-pitching, self help guru or life coach required, and while you are out there getting all enlightened and pure while you are shoveling the  driveway, you meet your weird neighbors.  Bonus.  We had snow this weekend, and so I found out all the gossip from my neighbor Butch.  People say men don’t gossip, but yes, they do.  In case you need the dirt, that one neighbor next to him parks his mobile home over the property line, so sometimes Butch has to call the cops; the guy who used to own our house got mad if people left their garage doors open and if they parked in their driveways instead of in the garage .  And those neighbors across the street always leave that car parked on the street, they haven’t moved it for more than 7 days, which Butch says is against the association rules (We have those? I think, maybe I should read them).  Even though I don’t care much about all of this neighborhood gossip, I do like to know the neighbors; standing around and chatting with your neighbors while leaning on snow shovels, it’s kind of reminds me of the old days when people knew their neighbors. 

When I was a kid, my dad and the retired neighbor to our right, Jim, would stand around Jim’s motorcycle and talk for hours.  I couldn’t fathom how a motorcycle could be so interesting.  But not getting along with your neighbors is nothing new, on the other side we had the neighbors who didn’t like us, so we didn’t like them either.  Our neighbors, Anna and Joe, owned a bakery, and they would always put the days leftover baked goods on our fence.  But they also called us when our dog was outside barking.  Well, we did have a barky dog and no one ever let that damn dog in.  So I kind of think maybe Anna and Joe were right.  Maybe I was biased, mesmerized by the donut bribery, what can I say, I have always liked sugar.  You know those bakery cupcakes with the sugary candy-like decorative pieces on top?  Ya, those would appear on our fence.  Sometimes I would watch for Joe to come home, listen for him to whistle and leave the bag.  It was decided that Joe was nice and Anna was not, but I figured she owned the bakery too, so I was secretly thankful for the snacks.  They also warmed up their cars forever in the mornings, even though it was California, and my mom was terminally annoyed by that.  Of course, my dad got along fine with those neighbors, he and Joe talked about cars and my dad worked on their cars quite a bit over the years. The older couple across the street from us were a trusted to hold the spare key to our house, in case my brothers and I lost our keys.  They always bought our fundraiser candy, even though I know they couldn’t eat it, and my dad always watched out for them. 

I don’t know, I think it’s okay to not know your neighbors, especially when people move so often.  I don’t think I want to have a block party or anything, but it is nice to know that if something happened you could go knock on the neighbor’s door.  And we all have to share this space, so if we remotely like each other it’s much easier to get along.  

Snow days remind us to slow down, chat with a neighbor, and enjoy all that free beauty that nature offers.  Tommy likes the snow, but he doesn’t like to wear clothes and he doesn’t like the clothes he is wearing to be wet, so he was out there for about 10 minutes, then he was back inside watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in his underwear.  I told him when he is a teenager, he is helping, but he laughed at me.  It’s like he knows.  He knows that he will say no way man, you can’t make me, and he’s only two.

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